\Header{readpDataSlides}{Reads the description of all slides or channels}
\keyword{IO}{readpDataSlides}
\begin{Description}\relax
The function reads the \code{slideDescriptionFile},
which contains all information row-wise
for each slide/microarray
or for each channel in a tab-deliminated text file.
The file is read up to the first line
containing solely "white space".
\end{Description}
\begin{Usage}
\begin{verbatim}readpDataSlides(slideDescriptionFile = "slideDescription.txt", loadPath = ".", deleteBlanks = TRUE, verbose = TRUE)\end{verbatim}
\end{Usage}
\begin{Arguments}
\begin{ldescription}
\item[\code{slideDescriptionFile}] character string;
required; default "slideDescription.txt".
The first line of the file must contain all column names,
in particular the column named "fileName" which contains
image analyis result file names and possibly
additionally a column which contains the slide names;
cf. the arguments \code{fileNameColumn} and
\code{slideNameColumn}
of \code{\Link{readIntensities}}.

\item[\code{loadPath}] character string; required; default: ".".
The path is used to load the \code{slideDescriptionFile};
note: "." refers to the working directory.

\item[\code{deleteBlanks}] logical; required; default: \code{TRUE}.
Any blank character is removed from
the text body of the
\code{slideDescriptionFile}

\item[\code{verbose}] logical; required; default: \code{TRUE} 
\end{ldescription}
\end{Arguments}
\begin{Value}
\code{\Link{data.frame}}
\end{Value}
\begin{Author}\relax
Andreas Buness <a.buness@dkfz.de>
\end{Author}
\begin{SeeAlso}\relax
\code{\Link{readIntensities}},
\code{\Link{processArrayData}}
\end{SeeAlso}
\begin{Examples}
\begin{ExampleCode}
       LOADPATH <- file.path(.path.package("arrayMagic"), "extdata")
        SLIDEDESCRIPTIONFILE <- "slideDescription"
  
        resultObject <- readpDataSlides(
                             loadPath=LOADPATH, 
                             slideDescriptionFile=SLIDEDESCRIPTIONFILE
                  )
 \end{ExampleCode}
\end{Examples}

